The one great power for character-building is thought. It lies within the ability of every individual to build a greater character or a minor one. Thought is food for the mind, as meat is for the body. Man’s thoughts should be high and noble, for “as a man thinketh, so is he.” If he studies principles, he builds upon the rock. If not, his structure falls.
A principle is the beginning of all things. It is the foundation upon which to build. The principle that is to-day, was yesterday and will be to-morrow. It was in the beginning; it will exist forever. It stands from eternity to eternity. A principle is a great truth. It is a collection of truths briefly expressed. It is a truth from which many truths may grow.
A principle is like a tiny nut that grows in the forest. It is a little shell filled to the brim with delicious food. If we take the hickory nut and carefully lay it away upon the shelf, it will collect the dust of ages, while we grow lean and die of starvation beside it. So it is with the principle. To reap its benefits, its shell must be broken and the truths therein assimilated. They must become a part of us.
If you would obtain these principles, God’s holy Word is the marketplace. They are to be had in great abundance, free of charge, from this plentiful storehouse. He only who deals in these goods acquires greatness. ’Tis he alone that will sparkle as the diamond. He it is that becomes the notable star.
To stand by principle, how grand a thing and how noble! It was John Huss, a brave and valiant hero, who lifted his little light from beneath the bushel and held it above the Eastern world, until it was smothered by the Egyptian darkness. Yet it was not smothered, for its beacon rays stream forth unto this day. He stood out against the Roman world. Altho he himself was crushed, his influence lives. The venomous, scorching, singeing flame that crisped his mortal body into a cinder was unable to consume the fuel that fed the lamp that was to shed its beams over the earth with the brightness of the sun. Yet he is but one victim out of thousands who have succumbed to that most cruel, unmerciful, and most despotic tyrant, intolerance.
I admire such a character as John Wycliffe, the English reformer, whose ashes were sprinkled upon the waters of the little brook, because he dared to stand firm for principle. I love such characters as John Huss and Jerome, who were martyred at the stake, sacrificing their lives in the flames rather than to sacrifice principle. I honor such a character as Martin Luther, who dared to stand out against kings and pontiffs, in the face of the avenging and murderous throng of the agents of Satan, in the presence of Charles V. himself, to utter truths with a faith that turned the world upside down. Such characters as these are admirable, they are grand, they are indeed noble.
It is to such men as these, in the providence of God, that we are indebted for the principles of our Protestant faith, and the privilege of enjoying them free and unmolested, under the grandest and most glorious government the world has ever known.
But why is our government so grand and so glorious?—It is because of that freedom and that liberty for which she stands. America, now for over one century, has been a synonym for all that is meant by freedom, liberty, and the rights of man. Take these from her, and you take away her glorious name. I glory in the name of America only because of that for which she has always stood. If this be removed, her glory vanisheth like the flying meteor. To-day she is a gleaming spark; to-morrow she is a cinder.
It was in the far-away East that the dismal blackness of the Dark Ages burst asunder before the dauntless approach of golden dawn, when those brilliant morning stars first bathed the land in their soft radiance. As the widening space grew broader that lay between them and the horizon, as nearer, still nearer they approached the zenith, how great was that tidal wave which followed! Nor was it to be checked until it had reached the remotest shores of our own dear land. Arising in Middle Europe, it swept overland through Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, and its culminating height was to be reached in our grand American Republic. Is that wave still advancing? Was it able to pass the gallant Rockies, and proceed unretarded in its onward course? Will it be able to continue to stand at flood tide? It surges, it plunges, it foams. The waters indeed are troubled.6
On the western shores of the broad Atlantic, peerless in her beautiful robe of precious principle, liberty, and equality of man, a new nation arose from her revolutionary birth. The hearts of men were shocked, surprised, and stirred. With amazement and secret admiration, the kingdoms of the Old World watched closely the infant land. Rocked by the waves of the twin seas, in the cradle of the red man’s country, this child of liberty increased in wisdom and stature, for God was with her. She became a refuge for the fleeing, a home for the homeless, an asylum for those who long to be free. With many a sickening pang from the insults of the religious bigot, imprisoned, scourged, beaten, burned, fleeing from the face of death itself, our forefathers reluctantly and with deep sorrow abandoned their sacred and beloved homesteads, the land of their nativity, the play-grounds of their childhood, for a lonely cabin in the trackless wilderness. A thousand times rather would they risk their lives among the wild beasts and the savage barbarians of the dismal forest, face the dangers of cold and hunger amid the cheerless, dreary bleakness of the icy New England winter, than to yield their God-given liberty of worship. Friendless and homeless, they land upon the frozen Atlantic beach. Little hope was there and little warmth in the broad expanse of the drifting snow and in the chilling blasts that drove the stinging sleet against their swarthy, weather-beaten cheeks. But far better die in the frosty wilderness than to become the hopeless victims of the religious tyrant.
Such men should know the price of liberty. Here they could worship God as they chose. Here, it seemed, was to be found no rack, no fagot, no thumbscrew, no stake, no implements to torture out the lives of men, no limbs were to be pulled asunder by horse and chain. The horrible scene of the inquisition had indeed been checked, but the lesson had not been completely learned. The persecuted became, in a measure, the persecutors, and as usual their superiors became their victims. However, the unlearned lesson was not lost. It found utterance in our national Constitution. Until then the principles of civil and religious liberty had been unknown by governments. But now they had become a glorious truth. For the first time in the world’s history a government had come to earth which in deed and in truth recognized God as the Author of our liberties, not in the Constitution but by the Constitution and in the conscience of the individual, and forever should it so remain. The government is a civil machine by which every man should be protected.
“Man is more than constitutions, better rot beneath the sod
Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God;
We owe allegiance to the State, but deeper, truer more,
To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit’s core;
Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then
Before man made us citizens, Great Nature made us men.”
How happy and fortunate were the American people when their long-sought treasure found expression in these words, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Because of this ungranted privilege did Rome receive her deadly wound. Altho the United States had assumed the rights which Rome had failed to grant; altho she had seized upon the liberties which the ruler of kings and emperors had crushed beneath her bloody heel, no protest was thundered from the Vatican. Her power had received a blow that God’s cause might prosper, and prosperity was the result.
Grand was the work done by the heroes of the Reformation. The way was a long and dangerous one. Snares and pitfalls and beasts of prey were on every side. Through fire and blood they waded, gashed and pierced by sword and spear. Defenseless, yet determined, on they ran. They must scale the rugged cliff, and in spite of hazard and of peril the race was won. They climbed the jagged rocks to the summit of the over-hanging precipice. Breathless from the swiftness of the flight, weakened and trembling from the wounds received at the hand of the foe, exhausted, they sank down to rest upon the bank of the steep descent. Their work was done. They had accomplished their purpose and a reward to them is sure. But where were those to carry forward the great task? In this spot their followers built their churches. During the intervening years, the storms and tempests of time have beaten hard upon the sides of this precipice until, little by little, handful after handful, it has been sprinkled into the abyss below. Many of the churches are toppling over into the chasm whence they came. Many are trembling and tottering upon the verge of destruction, as is plainly manifested by the growing friendship existing between Protestantism and the Papacy. A few straying lambs who could not be reconciled by a life of quiet and ease, have wandered far into the interior. These are they who are to carry forward the reformation. Like all reformers, they are classed with fanatics, destroyers of the peace and safety. What Rome would have branded as a heretic, professed Protestantism has branded as a pessimist. Each is a representative of the same cause. Each tacks the theses upon the door of the orthodox church. By each the same perils must be endured.
It has been said, “Great destructionists are of the past, great constructionists are of the future.” Happy race, if it were but true! But facts declare unto us that inventive genius has made one man of to-day equal to scores in the time of Rome in power for destruction. And the disposition to destroy is not dead; it steadily grows. Behold the scenes in which almost every nation of the globe is acting. Men go forth to murder; blood flows freely, which the earth drinks in with silence, as of yore. Bitter tears, like shining dewdrops, trickle and break o’er the paling cheek. O piteous sight to behold! Yet this is not all; the worst is yet to come. The principles whereby we are free fall into disfavor. It is said, “To these times they do not apply.” Expediency usurps authority. “This is the most unkindest cut of all.”
Great destruction it seems is of the present, and the prospect is ominous for far greater destruction in the future. The destroyer of principle is worse than a murderer. Not only does he cause thousands of hearts to still their muffled throb, but the peace, the happiness, the joy, and the freedom of millions is ruthlessly swept away by a restriction of their liberties. Curtail the rights of your fellow-men, and you strike a death-blow to your own. Remember this when you would rule a people against their will, or enforce a religious statute. Was not the truth well spoken by that English diplomat, Edward Thornton, who said, “Englishmen now understand that in the American revolution you were fighting our battles.” This was then the truth, and time has not changed it. Profit by the experience of the past. Jump not into a chasm whose depths have not been sounded.
While our attention is called across the sea; while we are so intently watching the rapid changes that are taking place in swift succession in the political world; while we are so busily engaged in combat with a foreign host, a traitorous, a cunning deceiver, a more deadly foe, is stealthily pillaging our camp at home. Posing as our friend, he demands better laws; laws with forced obedience to some religious dogma. He demands a religious qualification for office, in other words, Christian citizenship, a new name for the old Roman statutes enforced by the inquisition. By some, these points are considered of little moment, but great and dire will be their results. Does not the past contain enough of these, or shall we willingly close our eyes to the facts and allow the scenes of the Dark Ages to be repeated before us? A thousand times easier is it to prevent evil than to eradicate it after it has once taken root. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.”
The day has already dawned, in which you and I shall be compelled to stand for truth or for error. The conflict will be one in which the principles pertaining to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will be at stake. Many and suggestive are the fearful omens that foretell the coming danger. “The wind has long been blowing from a direction that indicates approaching storm.” “Stability of government is no longer a fact. Traditional principles are losing their sacredness. Change is in the atmosphere.” Destructive raids have already been made upon both the civil and the religious rights of man, while he stands defenseless and unheeded. Yesterday the life of our nation was a placid, smiling river. To-day we see the boiling rapids of a plunging torrent. To-morrow what abyss shall hold her remains?
O Columbia! the bigot’s cruel hatred invades thy sacred realm. The galling shackles of the chain-gang bruise the ankles of thy most honorable and law-abiding children. Prison bars keep close the most thoughtful and considerate, yea, the loyalty of thy long-honored race. Kind and loving fathers breathe the poisonous air of thy dungeon cell. Death has been the result. Tears of agonizing grief, a widowed mother’s aching, bleeding heart, sobbing children’s wounded joy, fill the lonely, saddened homes. Fines take the place of bread for the hungry. Fire sweeps away the property of those peacefully at worship, while a minister of the Gospel, a leader of the Christian mob, addresses his followers in the light of the crackling flame. Religious laws are proposed with death as their penalty, and the council-building trembles with applause. All this, O Freedom, beneath the protecting folds of thy beloved banner, in “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
The tidal wave is receding to her home within the sea; but the precious pearls lie glittering on the beach. I know the pearls are scanty, but they glitter in the sunlight; the drift-wood is abundant, but it floats; it is the star that firmly stands and shines while the dark clouds roll heavily by.
“Men longed, O Freedom, that thy budding flower
Might bloom for aye, but e’er its petals op’ed
A worm was gnawing in the bud. By power
Of good example men had fondly hoped
To see the world affirm thy fair control,
And everywhere beneath thy vaulted sky
Mankind be free. Alas! the sacred scroll
Thy hand had penned is now proclaimed a lie.
Farewell, great Constitution of the free,
And Declaration of the rights of men.
Thy thankless offspring would be rid of thee
And turn to king and colony again.
The nations once had looked and wavered. Thou,
Columbia, their ensample, couldst have led
Them then to nobler heights, but canst not now.”
For lo! the day seems going to rest. Its light-bearer appears to be weary. He languisheth. His day’s work is almost done. He is darting his final beams o’er the land of the free. Long and kind has been his service, and happy the lives of those he served.
“It was in the grand old Independence Hall,
That Franklin decided of the picture on the wall,
That its sun was a rising sun.”
But now he has wheeled his golden circle through the azure arch, and is rapidly veiling his face from our view.
“The golden light is fading upon the mountains gray,
And twilight’s purple shading falls o’er the dying day.—”
O patriotism! why hast thou forsaken thy people? Art thou fled to the islands of the sea? Art thou on a tour to Central Asia?—No. No evidence of patriotism is found in such movements. These are only crusades to crush with cruel tyranny the patriotism that would peacefully dwell upon a foreign shore. Then where hast thou hidden thy face?
O fathers of the American soil! thou art sleeping. AWAKE! I call unto you. Behold the threatening cloud impending. Intolerance bold already tramples down the helpless. Put on thy helmet of truth. Gird on thy armor of precious principle that characterized the founders of our nation, and with the keen sword of protest arise against the on-coming foe. A handful in the cause of right can subdue a world of evil. Yea, we must conquer. And with God as our commander, CONQUER WE WILL. E. S. EDWARDS.